Watch out Brussels and Kyiv, Poland’s conservatives are veering right

Poland’s opposition is shifting further to the right ahead of an election next year and that threatens to have a major impact for the EU and Ukraine. The nationalist Law and Justice party (PiS) that ran the country from 2015 to 2023 — picking repeated battles with Brussels over rule of law and LGBTQ+ rights — split last Friday. At its heart, the feud centers on a clash between iron-fisted party leader Jarosław Kaczyński and former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. The big question is what that rupture means for the political trajectory of a country that has one of the largest militaries in NATO and has been a key strategic ally to Kyiv since the Russian invasion. Allies of pro-EU Prime Minister Donald Tusk read it as good news. When Kaczyński stepped to the microphone to kick out Morawiecki, two lawmakers from Tusk’s governing coalition filmed themselves watching the speech, eating popcorn. You can see why they might be happy. Before the split, POLITICO’s Poll of Polls put Tusk’s Civic Coalition at 32 percent support and PiS at 26 percent. PiS has now slumped to 22 percent. But that is hardly the whole story. The combined forces of right-wing parties are still in a strong position if they team up for the 2027 election. And Friday’s split means that PiS is more likely to veer right in its alliances, choosing ideological consolidation over an attempt to win back the center. The wing of PiS led by Morawiecki had argued the party needed to broaden its appeal and adopt a less combative approach toward Brussels. Kaczyński instead appears determined to recapture voters who have defected further right. It is far from certain, however, how successfully Poland’s far-right parties can agree on a common agenda with PiS. Among the potential beneficiaries of Friday’s split are parties that oppose Ukraine joining the European Union — and, in the case of Grzegorz Braun’s Federation of the Polish Crown movement, advocate taking Poland out of the bloc altogether. Poland votes in the fall of 2027. On current polling, most plausible routes to a right-wing majority would require the Konfederacja party, Braun’s party or both. “For years, a right-wing voter in Poland had no alternative. If you had right-wing views, you voted for Law and Justice, because there was nothing else,” said Anna Bryłka, a member of the European Parliament and vice-president of Konfederacja, the biggest of the hard-right parties now gaining sway. “Today that alternative exists. Law and Justice is simply losing its hegemony on the right.” The breakup came to a head over a midnight deadline to renounce the faction Morawiecki had built inside the party, or leave. About 45 lawmakers refused to sign. Kaczyński declared them outside the party, triggering PiS’s most serious rupture in two decades. Morawiecki during a summit in the European Parliament on February 3, 2026. | Thierry Monasse/Getty Images Morawiecki, prime minister until 2023, was hardly a centrist by European standards. But within PiS, his supporters represented a more economically liberal and tactically less confrontational camp — and a rival center of power. Yet PiS is bleeding voters rightward anyway. Kaczyński selected hardline former Education Minister Przemysław Czarnek as his preferred candidate for prime minister to win back Konfederacja’s electorate. The polls slid regardless. “Why would a voter choose the copy,” Bryłka said, “when they can vote for the original?” The kingmakers name their price In surveys testing a separate Morawiecki list, support for PiS falls to between 16 and 22 percent, Konfederacja takes roughly 13 to 15 percent and Braun’s party about 10 percent. Morawiecki’s Rozwój Plus (Development Plus) project has backing ranging from below the 5 percent parliamentary threshold to around 7.5 percent. No party with such weak support can govern alone. Bryłka’s conditions for forming a right-wing al